Coaching football is a fulltime job – often on top of another fulltime job.

Whether teaching classes during the day before heading out to the high school field or rushing home from work to coach the sport at the youth level, most available minutes are spent breaking down Xs and Os while planning ahead for practices and games.

The last thing most coaches are thinking about is micromanaging parents and their expectations on top of what the children need to learn the game.

But effective coach-parent communication goes a long way toward team harmony. A recently published article in Strategies, a journal published by the Society of Health and Physical Educators, provides effective ways to communicate with sports parents.

The article leans on contemporary research, identifying different types of parents and how to effectively find common ground.

SEE ALSO: The tricky balancing act that is also known as the parent-coach relationship

Here are a few quick, important pointers that coaches can utilize while interacting with different types of parents:

Performance focused

Keep these type of parents involved but from a distance.

Be cautious when allowing performance-based parents to get too close, because it is often difficult for these types of parents to differentiate between what is good for the team and what is good for their child.

Emotionally driven

Parents who are emotionally driven typically raise children who are as well.

Consider working directly with those children to impart effective methods to deal with winning and losing in a constructive manner.

Seasoned veterans

Most parents who excelled at sports have a more realistic understanding of what their children, and their children’s team, may be going through. Accordingly, it is best to try and engage these parents by communicating what is best for the team, not for the individual child.

Try not to get defensive when these type of parents attempt to bend your ear. They may be able to provide valuable insight. Keep the lines of communication open by attempting to keep the focus of the communication on what is best for the team.

Financial influencers

These types of parents are used to getting their way. And when things become out of their control, they often resort to blaming the coach for their lack of power over a situation.

As a general rule, keep your distance. Never accept any direct favors or financial assistance from a parent, even if it may ultimately help the team in the short run. Direct these parents to league officers who can instruct parents how to help financially through a scholarship fund or equipment donation.

Another effective method is to create a parent-booster group and funnel all funds through this group. This helps to decentralize any perceived or real power behind financial donations.

Verbal abusers

These parents can be exceedingly difficult to deal with but also are very easy to identify. They rarely have the welfare of the coach or team in mind.

One effective method is to directly engage the student-athlete and help him or her better understand the reasoning behind a coach’s decision. Ideally, these positive interactions with the coach will then be relayed by the student directly to the parents.  

Submissive bystanders

These parents can become a coach’s best ally. If a coach effectively engages these parents and makes them feel appreciated, they are more likely to support the coach and less likely to question coaching decisions, especially when approached by other parents.

Clock watchers

These types of parents believe that everyone should get an equal amount of playing time, especially when their children are effected by lack of playing time.

One solution is to have a preseason meeting where coaches communicate what the playing time policy is and that playing time becomes less guaranteed as kids get older. Instead, playing time is earned based on a number of subjective and objective factors.

As a coach, it is important to specifically outline these factors.

SEE ALSO: Parents must treat their youth sports coaches with respect

SEE ALSO: 6 ways to work through parent-coach disagreements